This joint SHC Task 58 / ECES Annex 33 deals with advanced materials for latent and chemical thermal energy storage, Phase Change (PCM) and Thermo Chemical (TCM) materials. The task deals with these materials on three different scales:
- Material properties, focused on their behaviour from molecular to bulk scale, including material synthesis, micro-scale mass transport and sorption reactions;
- Material performance within the storage system , focused on the materials behaviour and when they are implemented in the storage itself, including heat, mass, and vapour transport, wall-wall and wall-material interactions, and reactor design;
- Storage system implementation, focused on the performance of a storage within a heating or cooling system, including for instance economical feasibility studies, case studies, and system tests.
Because seasonal storage of solar heat for solar assisted heating of buildings is the main focus of the IEA-SHC TCP, this will be one of the primary focus areas of this task. However, because there are many more relevant applications for TES, and because materials research is not and cannot be limited to one application only, this task will include multiple application areas.